Stay? Go?

Okay, time to be emo for a little while.  I’ve been trying to hold it in for what feels like the last forever or so, but enough is enough and I’m gonna hafta talk about it sooner or later so it may as well be here and now.

I have spent my last month looking for a job.  I’ve gone to God only knows how many bars and restaurants, several each day, six days a week, turning in CVs, talking to managers and assistants and bartenders and everyone I can, calling and interviewing and showing up and trolling Craigslist and Google and every site I can find like nobody’s business.  I’ve worn more black clothing and cute makeup than I think I’ve ever worn in my life and I have blisters like you wouldn’t believe from my black flats.

And to believe the people I’ve been dealing with, I’m not doing badly.  I haven’t had a single legitimately bad interview.  I’ve charmed so many managers; they’ve introduced to me to their entire staffs, their assistants, their senior bartenders.  They’ve had me recite recipes, make a drink or two, talk about my philosophies, my reactions to and strategies for everything from customer come-ons to drunken new arrivals to requests for drinks I don’t know how to make, my experience with everything from bartending to school to other unrelated jobs to the city as a whole.  I have talked about everything with everyone.  I’ve been all but promised jobs.  I’ve been told that they need to talk to an assistant, a manager, that they need to confirm with a higher-up, that they want to call one of my references to be sure about things, that they’ll call or email me tomorrow, the next day, after the weekend, and once, memorably, I was told that I should come in the next day for training – only to not get called, not get emailed, and the next day, when I came in, the other manager was in and they had no idea who I was and couldn’t reach the person I’d spoken with on the phone.

To say that I am tired and frustrated and annoyed would be a mild understatement.

But I’m stuck.  I need a job, not just if I want to move into the city, but even if I stay in Jerz – to afford voice and conducting lessons, and scores and recordings and that ear-training book I have my eye on, and the occasional Alexander session and studio time for audition tapes and eventually I’m going to need to buy a camcorder for conducting tapes and headshots sooner or later and there’s just all this STUFF that you need if you wanna pursue music – not even to be a musician, but just to try to get the training, and without an honest-to-God full-time job, I can’t do that.  BUT, I also can’t do it with a “regular” job.  Marina’s been encouraging me to apply for something legit, but if I’m in a 9-5 job, I’ll lose my income from the TIC (and the perks of being CU staff, like access to the music lib), I’ll have a much harder time scheduling lessons and auditions, I’ll probably have to rent rehearsal space because I’ll disturb my neighbors/roommates if I sing at home in the evening – I mean, there are reasons why waiting tables and bartending both appeal so strongly to dancers and musicians and actors!  You need that flexibility.  Even working fixed schedules at the TIC and church has been problematic at times, and those are part-time and (in the case of the TIC) somewhat flexible.

So I’m starting to think very seriously about Cairo.  I probably wouldn’t be able to work there – not for pay, at least – but I could take classes and spend a hell of a lot of time studying theory and ear training and I could take voice lessons with some great teachers and live very cheaply while doing all of the above.  I could live at home and talk with my mom and drink coffee with my dad and be happy.  I could learn another language and study Byzantine chant properly and maybe get somewhere with both of those things.  I could make progress and meet new people and be a fish in a somewhat smaller pond.  And eventually, I’d be able to apply for grad more easily in Europe (and as easily as ever in the States).

But…I wouldn’t be here.  So many of the people I love are here.  No Molly and Ruby; no cousins (except maybe the ones in Greece) and no aunts and uncles.  No more TIC.  No more Patricia, and no more Jeff.  No more St. MM, traded for a Greek-and-Arabic GO church in Heliopolis that I would rarely be able to attend (unless my navigating-Cairo skillz get WAY better way fast).  No more choir…  And so many of my friends are here, and the ones who aren’t here-here are mostly quite accessible.  All these people I love, this whole support system that I just spent four years building – pfft, gone.  And Montreal is far enough already – I already have seven-plus hours and a border between me and there, I don’t need an ocean on top of that.  I’d go from three or four visits a year to…what, one?  Two, if I’m lucky?  Can I face that?

But right now, I’m in limbo, and I can’t keep that up.  When we were getting ready for the hurricane, I brought most of my boxes upstairs – the stuff with clothing (to keep it from getting damp and then mildewing) and the stuff with books/papers/electronics (to keep it from getting flat-out ruined) and it made me realize what a tiny fraction of my life I’m living right now.  I’m wearing a quarter of my wardrobe, reading a tenth of my books (if that!), working from perhaps an eighth of my scores, and it’s driving me progressively further and further up the proverbial wall.  I can’t find anything, and when I do know where something is, it’s usually at the bottom of a box or a suitcase, and I can’t bring myself to face the mess of digging it out and then having to pack everything else back up.  I think I have two sweaters and one pair of boots, and it’s getting cold outside.  Something’s gotta give, and I don’t know what it’s gonna be.  Either I need to move into the city and get back to normal, or move to Cairo and create a new normal, but much as I love living with my family and as much as I like Jersey (and yes, no matter how much I whine, I do really like Jersey), this just isn’t sustainable.  It was intended as a temporary solution and I’m stretching it too far.

So now what am I supposed to do?  Stay?  Go?  Get an apartment under what may be mildly questionable circumstances and hope that a job follows it?  Make my roommate-to-be wait while I keep looking for a job and hope that something hurries up and gets here?  Can I even get through the app process on two part-time jobs?  As it stands, I’d be able to pay rent but not much else.  Meanwhile, I’m trying not to think about taxes, or Christmas coming up, or possibly seeing a dentist, or really anything other than the day-to-day.  In short, I’m not quite an adult.  But would moving to Cairo just be a way of delaying adulthood?  Because I’m not sure I’m down for that.

For that matter, I love my parents, but I haven’t lived at home full-time since I was seventeen, and Cairo can be kind of hard to take, especially when you’re me and you don’t like going out alone and you don’t speak the language and you don’t really know people or have places to go.  For that matter, I haven’t been back since the revolution – no idea what I’d be facing now, but from what I hear, it probably wouldn’t be a huge improvement.  It would have been one thing to move there in high school, but I’m not sure that I can do it now.  How do I know that I won’t go stir-crazy there?  How do I know that I won’t be crying myself to sleep every night?  How do I know that I won’t wind up back here, tail between my legs, in six months?  But at the same time, the stress of my situation now is giving me insomnia again.  Again, I say:  THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE.

Guys, I’m stuck.  All advice is wildly appreciated.